The United Nations, meanwhile, said the offensive launched by Kadhafi’s forces was paralysing the oil-rich nation and causing the population to suffer widespread shortages of essential goods.

Jets screamed in low over the capital in the early hours, carrying out an unusually heavy bombardment that lasted roughly three hours, an AFP correspondent said.

After heavy clashes, the rebels controlled a stretch of coastal road west of Misrata, Libya’s third city which Kadhafi’s forces have laid siege to for more than two months, forcing thousands to flee.

The Red Cross said meanwhile it delivered a shipment of humanitarian aid to the rebel-held western city amid concerns Kadhafi’s forces may have dropped mines into the harbour from helicopters bearing the Red Cross emblem.

A pro-regime newspaper said the army had restored “calm” in Banias, while an adviser to President Bashar al-Assad told The New York Times she believes the regime has ridden out the worst of the uprising.

EU sanctions against the regime took effect on Tuesday, with the president spared but his younger brother heading a list of 13 officials targeted for their involvement in the brutal crackdown.

“The army controls all the neighbourhoods of Banias and arrests are still underway there and in the neighbouring villages of Baida and Marqab,” Rami Abdul Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told AFP.

Troops are hunting down “leaders of the protest movement” such as Anas al-Shaghri, Abdul Rahman said by telephone from London where the group has its base.

The call by the Syrian Revolution 2011, an Internet-based opposition group, comes as the European Union listed the younger brother of President Bashar al-Assad among 13 Syrian officials facing sanctions for their involvement in violently repressing pro-democracy demonstrations that first erupted March 15.

“Demonstrations will continue every day,” said the Syrian Revolution 2011 Facebook page, which has been a motor of the protests.

Experts from the European Union, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank (ECB) began an audit of finances and reforms in Greece to determine if it merits a critical new slice of funding from a bailout package agreed last year.

This was just as a top ECB official warned that debt default or restructuring would hit the entire eurozone.

In an explosive session of a British parliamentary committee, six members of FIFA’s graft-tainted executive were accused of involvement in bribery before last year’s votes to decide the 2018 and 2022 World Cup hosts.

British lawmaker Damian Collins said the hearing had received evidence FIFA vice-president Issa Hayatou from Cameroon and Jacques Anouma from the Ivory Coast received bribes of 1.5 million dollars to vote for Qatar’s 2022 bid.

Weylandt died in a fatal accident on Monday’s third stage when he tumbled 20 metres to the road below as he negotiated a descent 25km from the finish line in Rapallo.

Amid a huge outpouring of emotion, the peloton agreed not to race the fourth stage, instead riding at a pace which effectively neutralised the race for the entire 216 km between Genoa and Livorno.

Kan was speaking hours after about 100 villagers who fled their homes near the stricken plant made brief but emotional return journeys into the rural no-man’s land in radiation suits and masks to pick up personal belongings.

Japan was plunged into a nuclear crisis by the March 11 quake-tsunami that hit the plant, causing partial reactor meltdowns, explosions and radiation leaks in the world’s worst atomic accident since Chernobyl 25 years ago.

Presenting the request to trade and industry minister Banri Kaieda, Masataka Shimizu told reporters that TEPCO would undertake bold restructuring measures to help pay for damages caused by the world’s worst nuclear accident for 25 years.

Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) said in the submitted document that the company faced “an extremely severe situation regarding fund-raising such as loans from financial institutions, not to mention bond issuance.”

In a deal that took a month from offer to signing, the software company outbid Google and Facebook, which sources said offered to partner or buy Skype for $3 billion to $4 billion.

Microsoft’s interest in the money-losing, but popular service highlights a need to gain new customers for its Windows and Office software. Skype has 145 million users on average each month and has gained favor among small business users.

The pledges were made in two days of talks between the world’s two biggest economies which ended with both sides hailing progress in their often tense relationship.

“We are seeing very promising shifts in the direction of Chinese economic policy,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said, though he repeated that China needs to let its yuan currency rise more rapidly.

Speaking to foreign correspondents in Berlin, Merkel did not rule out additional funding for Athens, or a possible further easing of terms on its 110 billion euro ($157 billion) bailout, and she voiced confidence that the German parliament would back a permanent bailout mechanism for the euro zone.

“I need to analyze the findings of the European Central Bank, European Commission and International Monetary Fund first and I can’t comment before that,” she said. “Anything else would not help Greece or Europe.

Greifeld on Tuesday said the offer is “probably still a couple weeks away.”

Earlier this month, Nasdaq and ICE said they planned to take their bid directly to shareholders in a tender offer.

Ahead of an afternoon meeting of Vice President Joe Biden and top lawmakers from both parties, the White House said Republicans should not hold the U.S. economy hostage by tying an increase in the country’s borrowing authority to trillion-dollar spending cuts.

“To hold one hostage to the other remains extremely unwise,” White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters aboard Air Force One as President Barack Obama flew to Texas.

The Obama administration is trying to save the individual mandate after a Virginia federal judge agreed with the state it was unconstitutional and struck down that part of the law.

The Obama administration has vigorously defended the measure, set to go into effect in 2014. The president’s Republican opponents are expected to make the issue a theme during his re-election bid by arguing it is a costly and unnecessary government expansion.

Goldman Sachs, in a high-profile case, was spooked in January into limiting an offering of Facebook shares to foreign investors out of fear that a sale of the private shares to U.S. customers would violate the rules.

Securities and Exchange Chairman Mary Schapiro and SEC corporation finance director Meredith Cross will appear together at the House Oversight Committee after its chairman, Darrell Issa, questioned whether rules governing the trading of private shares are outdated and hinder the creation of capital.

Greece denied reports on Tuesday it was discussing a new 60 billion euro ($84 billion) bailout with international lenders and its borrowing costs rose amid fears it may have to restructure its debt without further EU help.

A euro zone source involved in the preparation of the monthly meeting of ministers from the 17-member single currency area said a discussion of new aid for Greece, on top of the already agreed 110-billion-euro bilateral loans from the euro zone and the IMF was premature.

Doubts were raised by a German lawmaker whether Greece had met the conditions for getting the next, crucial tranche of aid under its existing bailout deal but a source close to EU and IMF inspectors in Athens said it was too early for a decision.

Prime Minister George Papandreou chaired a cabinet meeting ahead of the key EU/IMF decision — at stake is the next, 12 billion euro bailout tranche due in June, essential to pay 13.7 billion euros of imminent funding needs.

Ewald Nowotny, one of three members of the European Central Bank to voice opposition on Tuesday to a restructuring, said he favored giving Greece more time to repay its aid rather than issuing new loans.

“You have to be aware that this would immediately have massive consequences for the Greek banking system and for the banking system overall,” Nowotny told Austrian radio. “That would only heighten the crisis.”

GM said the plans will create or preserve more than 4,000 jobs as it retools the plants in eight states. The company employs 202,000 people globally, including 77,000 in the United States.

“We are doing this because we are confident about demand for our vehicles and the economy,” GM Chief Executive Daniel Akerson said.

The surplus of $11.4 billion, nearly four times greater than expected, comes as China holds high-level economic and strategic talks in Washington and could fuel U.S. criticism that Beijing limits the yuan’s appreciation to support its exports industry.

The trade account swung from a small, rare trade deficit in the first quarter, pushed by a stronger-than-anticipated 29.9 percent rise in exports over a year earlier to a record $155.7 billion.

President Barack Obama has vowed to begin in July a gradual withdrawal of the 100,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan as Washington takes steps to end a costly, unpopular war nearly a decade after the Taliban government was toppled.

A senior U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the weeks up to early- to mid-June would reveal the extent to which Obama’s decision to send an extra 30,000 troops to Afghanistan had weakened the Afghan insurgency.

In France, where Armstrong became famous by winning the Tour de France seven straight times, officials received a request from U.S. authorities last month for help gathering evidence about the cyclist and other members of his former U.S. Postal team.

The move indicates federal authorities are looking to bolster their case against Armstrong so they can give a grand jury in Los Angeles the fullest account possible of the cyclist’s actions before deciding whether Armstrong, like Bonds, also should face criminal charges related to using performance-enhancing drugs.

Dead broke and living in a FEMA trailer following the 2008 flood, Van Fleet repeatedly submitted paperwork and made countless phone calls arguing his case. After seven months, the agency finally gave him more than $20,000, which he said gave him his life back and allowed him to move into a house.

Then in March, a letter arrived from the government with a shocking message: He should never have gotten the money. And he had just 30 days to pay it all back.

The three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vigorously questioned lawyers on both sides, but the most spirited exchanges focused on the central issue in both cases: whether the law’s requirement that individuals buy insurance is constitutional. Federal judges in Virginia split on that question in the lawsuits, one filed by Virginia Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli and the other by Liberty University.

The 14-member court uses a computer program to randomly select its panels, and Obama could hardly have wished for a better outcome. He appointed two of the judges, Andre M. Davis and James A. Wynn Jr. The other was Judge Diana Gribbon Motz, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton.

Democratic officials said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., raised the idea of an extra tax on the wealthiest taxpayers and the Senate’s Democratic leader, Harry Reid, D-Nev., called for an end to tax subsidies for oil and gas companies. House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell both staked out seemingly unyielding positions against tax increases

The parties exchanged volleys over taxes even as bipartisan congressional negotiators working with Vice President Joe Biden struggled for common ground on spending cuts that would help erode long-term deficits.

The tougher U.S. line almost certainly would echo demands for “democratic transition” that the administration used in Egypt and is now espousing in Libya, the officials said. But directly challenging Assad’s leadership is a decision fraught with problems: Arab countries are divided, Europe is still trying to gauge its response, and there are major doubts over how far the United States could go to back up its words with action.

If the Syrian government persists with its harsh crackdown on political opponents, the U.S. could be forced into choosing between an undesired military operation to protect civilians, as in Libya, or an embarrassing U-turn that makes it look weak before an Arab world that is on the tipping point between greater democracy or greater repression.

Replacing bin Laden, who founded al-Qaida more than two decades ago and masterminded 9/11, may be no easy task. Analysts say the choice will likely depend on how the terror organization views its goals and priorities in the post-bin Laden age.

The revolt across the Arab world over the past few months was driven by aspirations for Western-style democracy, not the al-Qaida goal of a religiously led state spanning the Muslim world. And as al-Qaida struggles to prove its relevance, the group has become increasingly decentralized and prone to internal disputes.

The opposition also said it made gains along a long-deadlocked front near the eastern town of Ajdabiya.

The rebels’ military spokesman, Col. Ahmed Bani, said opposition forces had pushed Gadhafi’s troops out of rocket range on the west side of Misrata and dislodged them from the airport after two days of battles, raising the prospect that the siege could be broken.

The military has been sealing off various areas of Syria and conducting house-to-house raids in search for people whose names are on wanted lists, with many fleeing cities and towns for fear of detention by the regime of President Bashar Assad, activists say.

Intense military operations have taken place in the Damascus suburb of Maadamiyeh, which has been sealed off for days, said human rights activist Mustafa Osso. He said communications have been cut and checkpoints were preventing anyone from entering or leaving the area.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a rare red finding against the Browns Ferry nuclear power plant near Athens, Ala., after investigating how a valve on a residual heat removal system became stuck shut. The NRC has issued only five red findings – the most severe ranking the agency gives to problems uncovered in its inspections – since its current oversight program started in 2001.

NRC said the utility must pay for detailed inspections of the plant’s performance, its safety culture and organization. The agency said it could not immediately estimate inspection costs.

In an historical twist, though, Lee’s French-made ceremonial sword is returning to Appomattox 146 years later, leaving the Richmond museum where it has been displayed for nearly a century.

The Museum of the Confederacy in downtown Richmond is delivering one of its most-treasured pieces to Appomattox for a new museum that it’s building less than a mile from where Lee met with Grant to sign the document of surrender on April 9, 1865. The Army of Northern Virginia’s formal surrender followed three days later, effectively drawing to a close the Civil War that left about 630,000 dead.

Microsoft’s $8.5 billion purchase of Skype is supposed to make using the Internet for video phone calls as common as logging on to Facebook or instant messaging is today.

If it wins regulatory approval, the deal announced Tuesday provides Microsoft, the world’s largest software maker, with the means to sell more digital advertising and offer more popular conferencing tools to help businesses save money.

The neighborhood where the 24-year-old mother of two was slain once was known as a haven for black gays and lesbians, but activists say her death here late last month highlights an alarming rise in homophobic violence in some of the country’s most impoverished areas.

“If the police and other state officials do not act swiftly, it will only be a matter of time before they have to account for their failure to the family and friends of the next lesbian who is beaten and killed in Kwa-Thema,” Human Rights Watch researcher Dipika Nath said in a statement.

Naoto Kan said Japan needs to “start from scratch” on its long-term energy policy after the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant was heavily damaged by a March 11 earthquake and tsunami and began leaking radiation.

Nuclear plants supplied about 30 percent of Japan’s electricity, and the government had planned to raise that to 50 percent by 2030.

Off to the side, watching silently, were the U.S. special operations troops who had made the meeting possible by flying in the officials and disarming the villagers before they entered the compound.

If all went well, the Americans would later be training the neighborhood-watch-like police force to protect the villagers from the Taliban, and hastening the handover of security responsibility to the Afghans.

Most would likely be proposed for threatened or endangered status if a federal judge approves the agreement, Interior Department officials said. The species to be reviewed range from the greater sage grouse and Canada lynx, to 110 plants and 38 kinds of mollusks.

That could lay the groundwork for a spate of future conflicts over industrial development, water management and residential expansion wherever humans are encroaching into the natural world.

U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups issued his ruling in Salt Lake City just 14 hours after the law went into effect, saying that there is sufficient evidence that at least some portions of the Utah legislation will be found unconstitutional.

The American Civil Liberties Union and National Immigration Law Center last week sued to stop the implementation of House Bill 497, saying it could lead to racial profiling. The civil rights groups submitted hundreds of pages of evidence and affidavits to prove their claims ahead of Tuesday’s hearing.

The Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board denied a plan by Cook County to close Oak Forest Hospital, a move that triggered a celebration from those against closing the charity care hospital and disappointment from the county board president who was hoping shuttering the facility would help reduce crushing health care costs.

Meanwhile, officials predicted it would take three to four months to close Kenneth Hall Regional Hospital in East St. Louis and open an urgent care center nearby. The Southern Illinois Healthcare Foundation plans to move some of the psychiatric beds from Kenneth Hall to a sister hospital in neighboring Centreville.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a ruling Tuesday that there was not enough evidence to convict Siegelman and Scrushy of two bribery counts, which involved a hospital license and equipment. But the appeals court rejected a request for a new trial and let stand convictions on five counts against Siegelman and four against Scrushy. The court said they must be resentenced to reflect the reduced number of counts.

Siegelman was unaware of the decision until contacted by The Associated Press.

After two days of talks, the two sides announced a range of modest agreements aimed at increasing sales opportunities for U.S. companies in China. But there was no breakthrough on a key U.S. demand – letting China’s currency rise in value at a faster rate against the dollar. The currency issue gained new urgency in the view of American manufacturers with release of a Chinese government report showing that China’s trade surplus with the world had surged in April.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters at a closing news conference Tuesday that the United States had made its concerns known on a range of sensitive issues, including human rights.

The analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Urban Institute concluded that Medicaid’s role as the nation’s safety net health care program would be “significantly compromised … with no obvious alternative to take its place,” if the GOP budget is adopted.

The plan passed by House Republicans last month on a party-line vote calls for sweeping health care changes, potentially even more significant than President Barack Obama’s insurance overhaul. So far, most of the attention has gone to the Republican proposal to convert Medicare into a voucher-like system for future retirees. But Medicaid would also be transformed.

Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the party whip, placed himself on the same side as Republicans and the business community – and against liberal groups demanding more disclosure.

Hoyer told reporters that contractors should be chosen on the merits of their applications, their bids and their capabilities, not on their political donations.

Tanya McDowell’s arrest in Norwalk last month came a few months after Kelley Williams-Bolar of Akron, Ohio, was convicted of falsifying records for using her father’s address to send her children to safer suburban schools.

Yet in Connecticut, Ohio and elsewhere throughout the U.S., officials acknowledge parents are routinely caught doing the same thing but rarely face criminal charges.

After heavy clashes, the rebels controlled a stretch of coastal road west of Misrata, Libya’s third city which Kadhafi’s forces have laid siege to for more than two months, forcing thousands to flee.

The Red Cross said meanwhile it delivered a shipment of humanitarian aid to the rebel-held western city amid concerns Kadhafi’s forces may have dropped mines into the harbour from helicopters bearing the Red Cross emblem.

“The game is over for Kadhafi. He should realise sooner rather than later that there’s no future for him or his regime,” the NATO secretary-general told CNN’s “State of the Union” programme late Sunday.

“We have stopped Kadhafi in his tracks. His time is running out. He’s more and more isolated,” Rasmussen said.

The European Union meanwhile said an arms embargo and sanctions against 13 Syrian officials deemed responsible for the regime’s brutal crackdown on protesters would come into force on Tuesday.

And the United Nations complained that Syrian authorities blocked one of its teams from entering the southern town of Daraa, epicentre of the protests, and voiced concern for the plight of Palestinian refugees there.

One activist, declining to be named for security reasons, said that telephone lines to Muadamiya in western Damascus were cut while a witness said the main road to the Damascus suburb had been sealed off.

The source of the gunfire could not immediately be determined.

Authorities would “strike with an iron hand all those who seek to tamper with the nation’s security,” Justice Minister Abdel Aziz al-Gindi told reporters after the cabinet held crisis talks on Sunday.

Gindi said the government would “immediately and firmly implement the laws that criminalise attacks against places of worship and freedom of belief” using anti-terror laws to combat those “threatening national security.”

The government has vowed to use an “iron fist” to ensure national security after Saturday’s deadly clashes in Cairo, branded by Nobel peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei as “religious extremism of the Middle Ages.”

“We are facing the anti-revolutionary groups who are convinced that any success of the revolution was an even greater threat to their interests and so are trying to fuel confessional conflict,” wrote the flagship Al-Ahram newspaper.

Addressing parliament in his first comments since bin Laden was killed by US Navy SEALs a week ago less than a mile from a top military academy, Yousuf Raza Gilani promised an investigation, to be led by a top Pakistani general.

Pakistan is a key Washington ally in the US-led war on terrorism, but with already tense relations stretched even further by the discovery of bin Laden, Gilani issued thinly veiled criticisms of Washington.

Launching two days of talks, Vice President Joe Biden predicted that the relationship between the world’s largest economies would shape the 21st century and said: “A healthy competition, in our view, is good for both of us.”

“For many of the world’s pressing problems, it’s a simple fact that when the United States and China are not at the table, the solution to the problem is less possible,” Biden said at the annual Strategic and Economic Dialogue.

But Europe’s biggest bank added that its pre-tax gains were pushed down by rises to staff costs and by money set aside to compensate customers in Britain who were mis-sold credit insurance.

The group headquartered in London said that profit after tax for the three months to March 31 rocketed to $4.153 billion (2.88 billion euros) from $2.631 billion in the first quarter of 2010.

The ratings agency warned that its own “projections” suggested that merely rescheduling Greece’s debt repayments will not be enough and that private and state investors may only ever see half of their loans back again.

“Principal (capital) reductions of 50 percent or more could eventually be required to restore Greece’s debt burden to a sustainable level,” S&P’s said.

“Today, our teammate and friend Wouter Weylandt passed away after a crash on the third stage of the Giro d?Italia,” said Leopard-Trek Manager Brian Nygaard.

“The team is left in a state of shock and sadness and we send all our thoughts and deepest condolences to the family and friends of Wouter.

But the lustre of the annual show of force was somewhat dimmed by renewed doubts about the wisdom of staging the costly exhibition and reports that Islamists were planning to undermine the celebration by staging new attacks.

A well-rehearsed 1,500-piece orchestra set the tone to the procession by booming out festive marches as President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin watched from a podium in front of Lenin’s mausoleum.

He was speaking during a break in the hearing where he is charged with paying his former British lawyer David Mills $600,000 to give false testimony about his business dealings.

He again laid into the prosecutors in Milan, accusing them of persecuting him for political reasons.

Officials said the European Union was also looking to lower interest rates on rescue loans to Ireland within weeks and eyeing easier bailout terms for Greece as the common currency area floundered deeper into crisis.

But ratings agency Standard & Poor’s suggested far more radical measures would be required to make Greece’s 327 billion euros ($470 billion) debt mountain sustainable, saying Athens may have to reduce the face value of its bonds by up to 70 percent, implying big losses for investors.

The temporary shutdown of Hamaoka, which supplies power to central Japan — home to many manufacturers including Toyota Motor Corp — has added to concerns about power shortages following the crisis at another plant in northeast Japan that was crippled by the March 11 quake and tsunami.

Chubu’s decision was in response to an unprecedented request by Prime Minister Naoto Kan last week to halt all reactors still operating at Hamaoka, citing the high risk that a powerful earthquake would hit the region in coming years.

Opposition politicians have stepped up their criticism of Pakistan’s leaders over the killing of bin Laden in a raid by U.S. special forces in a northern Pakistani town on May 2.

Pakistan welcomed the death of bin Laden, who plotted the September 11, 2001, airliner attacks on the United States, as a step in the fight against militancy but also complained the raid violated its sovereignty.

Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton both used unusually blunt language on human rights at the start of an annual meeting of top officials from the two nations, saying the United States was concerned about Beijing’s recent clampdown, which has involving arrests, detentions and secretive confinement of human rights lawyers, protesters and dissidents.

“No relationship that’s real can be built on a false foundation. Where we disagree, it’s important to state it. We will continue to express our views on these issues,” Biden said at the opening of the Strategic and Economic Dialogue meeting in Washington.

The iPhone and iPad maker’s brand is now worth $153 billion, almost half Apple’s market capitalization, says the annual BrandZ study of the world’s top 100 brands.

Apple’s portfolio of coveted consumer goods propelled it past Microsoft to become the world’s most valuable technology company last year.

While the Manhattan federal court jurors began their third week of deliberations, final preparations were made for a separate trial of three defendants to hear as many as 100 secretly recorded conversations, also part of the government’s sweeping insider trading probe.

The three defendants — whose trial starts on May 16 with jury selection four floors above the courtroom where Rajaratnam has been on trial since March 8 — are former Galleon trader Zvi Goffer, who founded Incremental Capital, and two other former Incremental traders, Zvi’s brother, Emanuel Goffer, and Michael Kimelman.

U.S. gasoline prices are set to hover near $4 a gallon this week, about 11 cents off the record hit in 2008, as last week’s 15 percent drop in oil prices to below $100 a barrel takes time to work its way to service stations.

Failing more big drops in the oil market, consumers will continue to struggle with high fuel prices.

It looked like a bargain. Brent crude had been trading above $120 for a month. But the buying proved ill-timed. Crude kept on falling.

“They were down millions by the end of the day, trying to catch a falling piano,” an executive at a major New York investment bank said.

The Mississippi, which is projected to crest at Osceola, Arkansas, early on Monday, is expected to crest in Memphis on Tuesday at 48 feet, just inches shy of the record.

With the crest more than a day away, residents and tourists were recording the river’s rise, snapping photographs of water flowing over Beale Street, the city’s well-known tourist destination, and riding the popular sightseeing riverboats.

Debt-ridden Greece wants international lenders to ease terms of a 110 billion euro bailout and get fresh funding to avoid default, Greek officials said. They made the comments as European Union and International Monetary Fund inspectors found delays in Greece’s reforms and fiscal efforts.

“The initial plan was for Greece to return to markets (to raise 27 billion euros) in 2012. At this moment this appears difficult,” Labour Minister Louka Katseli told Reuters. “Discussions are taking place at a European level to explore alternative responses.”

The European Union is working to lower interest rates on bailout loans to Greece and Ireland and is looking at a second rescue for Athens in a chaotic effort to prevent a disorderly debt restructuring.

The Irish government believes the renewed rise in tensions around Greece has strengthened its hand in talks with its EU partners.

Hundreds have died in Misrata, which is the scene of weeks of conflict as rebels fighting to end Gaddafi’s decades in power attempt to hold off a government siege.

The port city is considered crucial to rebels’ chances of success because it stands as the last city they hold in the west of the country.

The fighting on Saturday was Egypt’s worst interfaith strife since 13 people died on March 9 after a church was burned, and it threw down a new challenge for generals ruling the country since the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak in February.

Prime Minister Essam Sharaf canceled a tour of Gulf Arab states to chair a cabinet meeting where the government decided to deploy more security near religious sites and toughen laws criminalising attacks on places of worship.

But where they see dollar signs, lawmakers see red flags.

The revelation last month that Apple’s iPhones collected location data and stored it for up to a year — even when location software was supposedly turned off — has prompted renewed scrutiny of the nexus between location and privacy.

Libyan rebels are having to come up with responses to those and related issues as they try to reopen schools in rebel-held Benghazi where in the past much of the curriculum was devoted to the wisdom of longtime ruler Colonel Muamma Gaddafi.

Before the uprising against him began in February, “Mushtama” and “Fikr-al-Jamahiri” weekly lessons based on the Gaddafi doctrine were mandatory and the leader’s thinking permeated everything from history to Arabic textbooks, rebels say.

Bahrain, where the Sunni king rules over a Shi’ite majority, declared emergency law in March before forcibly quelling the protests calling for greater political freedoms, a constitutional monarchy and an end to sectarian discrimination.

“The state of national safety is lifted across the kingdom of Bahrain from June 1, 2011,” state news agency BNA quoted the king’s decree as saying. It had been due to expire in mid-June.

Huthaifa al-Batawi, known as al Qaeda’s “Emir of Baghdad” and accused of a deadly attack on a Catholic church, was killed along with 10 other senior al Qaeda militants, said Baghdad’s security spokesman Major-General Qassim al-Moussawi.

The skirmish at an Interior Ministry counter-terrorism unit jail complex in Baghdad’s central Karrada district began when a prisoner grabbed a gun from a guard, killed several guards and ministry officers, and gave a weapon to other inmates, Moussawi said.

Although the House GOP plan to replace Medicare with a voucher-like system got shunted aside last week, that may not be the end of the story. Embedded in both the Republican plan and in Obama’s counter-proposal is the idea of putting limits on the growth of the half-trillion-dollar-a-year program – and then enforcing them.

High-level deficit negotiations resume Tuesday under the stewardship of Vice President Joe Biden, and tackling health care spending is critical to what could become the year’s most important legislation.

The U.S. said it has no plans to pull the spy chief, but the incident is likely to exacerbate an already troubled relationship between the two countries a week after Navy SEALs in helicopters swooped down on bin Laden’s compound without first telling the Pakistanis. The CIA and Pakistan’s spy agency have long viewed each other with suspicion, which the death of the terror leader has laid bare.

The Pakistani military and intelligence services have suffered withering criticism at home for failing to stop the U.S. operation. Many Pakistanis view the raid as a violation of their sovereignty – even if they were pleased that bin Laden was killed.

Gingrich’s announcement, made on social networking websites Monday, came after months of public flirting with a bid. He enters a slow-to-form GOP presidential field that has left some Republicans craving more options as they search for a nominee strong enough to credibly challenge President Barack Obama.

The former Georgia congressman, well-known to most Republicans, brings to the race a years-in-the-making political machine with ties to early nominating states as well as a network of supporters and donors. But his personal baggage – he’s acknowledged marital infidelity and has had two divorces – could hinder his chances of winning the party’s presidential nomination more than a decade after leaving the House.

The planned appeal to the high court comes after Brewer lost an initial appeal April 11, when a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals refused to reverse a lower court’s order that prevented key parts of the law from being enforced.

Attorney General Tom Horne said going directly to the Supreme Court and skipping a possible second appeal to the 9th Circuit will save time in resolving the case, while Brewer said she is confident “Arizona will prevail in its fight to protect its citizens.”

The commissioners – all political appointees in President Sebastian Pinera’s government – concluded a three-year environmental review by approving five dams on the Baker and Pascua rivers in Aysen, a mostly roadless region of remote southern Patagonia where rainfall is nearly constant and rivers plunge from Andean glaciers to the Pacific Ocean through green valleys and fjords.

Monday’s vote – 11 in favor and one abstention – could prove to be pivotal for the future of Chile, which has a booming economy, vast mineral wealth and a determination to join the elite group of first-world nations.

Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, had been unable to muster the votes he needed under Senate rules to pass the issue as its own bill after the measure met stiff resistance from higher education officials, notably from within the University of Texas system.

The measure seemed all but assured easy passage when the legislative session began in January. The Senate had passed a similar bill in 2009 and about 90 lawmakers in the 150-member House had signed on in support this year. But the bill stalled on its first three votes in the Senate and took some maneuvering by Wentworth to get it through.

Debra Brown is the first inmate exonerated under a 2008 Utah law allowing judges to reconsider convictions based on new factual – not scientific – evidence.

Brown’s exit from the Utah State Prison touched off an emotional reunion in the pouring rain.

The Associated Press and other news organizations requested the FBI file under the Freedom of Information Act following Steinbrenner’s death in July. The first release was made last December. The two releases combined totaled about 800 pages.

In a newly released 1988 FBI memo, the FBI said that it “supports the contention that George Steinbrenner has provided the FBI with valuable assistance.”

House Speaker John Boehner also says that any legislation to raise the so-called debt limit beyond its current $14.3 trillion cap should be accompanied by spending cuts larger than the amount of the permitted increase in the debt.

The Ohio Republican was scheduled to make the comments in a speech Monday night to the New York Economic Club; excerpts were released after the markets closed. Boehner’s comments come as investors and business groups have been seeking assurances that the GOP-controlled House will join with President Barack Obama and the Democratic-led Senate to enact the must-pass debt limit measure, which is needed to prevent a market-roiling, first-ever U.S. default on its obligations.

Weylandt tumbled to his death Monday in a downhill crash during the third stage of the Giro d’Italia, with the riders going 40 mph to 50 mph at the time. It was the first fatality at the Italian race in 25 years and the first at one of the sport’s showcase tours in 16 years.

It was one of the most high-profile deaths at an international sports event since Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili’s fatal crash in training on the eve of last year’s Vancouver Olympics. It also renewed questions about safety in cycling, where riders zip down winding mountain roads with steep drops and hairpin curves.

The government’s punishing response triggered new international sanctions Monday, as the European Union imposed an arms embargo. The measure, which followed U.S. sanctions, also prohibits 13 Syrian government officials from traveling anywhere in the 27-nation EU and freezes their assets.

President Bashar Assad has dispatched army troops and tanks to crush the seven-week uprising that has posed the most serious challenge to his family’s 40-year rule. Assad’s regime appears determined to crush the uprising by force and intimidation, despite the rapidly growing international outrage and a death toll that has topped 630 civilians since the unrest began, according to rights groups.

It’ll be Back to the Future for the island nation, offsetting a decision it made 119 years ago to stay behind a day and align itself with U.S. traders based in California.

That has meant that when it’s dawn Sunday in Samoa, it’s already dawn Monday in adjacent Tonga and shortly before dawn Monday in nearby New Zealand, Australia and increasingly prominent eastern Asia trade partners such as China.

Twice a day, the flow steadily increases until it is knee-deep, carrying fish and debris by her front door and trapping people in their homes. Those still on the streets slosh through the sea water in rubber boots or on bicycle.

“I look out the window, and it’s like our houses are in the middle of the ocean,” says Takahashi, who moved in three years ago.

With the river just feet from her single-story home, Shirley Woods had the grill going in the backyard, cooking ribs, pork chops, chicken and hot dogs. She was getting ready to make potato salad.

When she woke up at first light, she was prepared to leave if the Mississippi had gotten high enough, but she decided she had time to at least celebrate Mother’s Day here with relatives.

The deal between the plaintiffs and St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford came during the middle of jury deliberations in the first of more than 90 lawsuits involving the late Dr. George Reardon to go to trial. Terms of the settlements were not disclosed.

The hospital was accused of failing to properly monitor Reardon, who died in 1998 without ever facing criminal charges. St. Francis also was accused of failing to protect children from harm and of not confirming the validity of Reardon’s study.

The push by Locke Lord Strategies to turn the tide against criticism of Pakistan – and preserve the country’s billions of dollars in U.S. aid – illustrates one of Washington’s enduring realities: No matter the issue or the crisis, lobbyists are working behind the scenes to shape opinions on Capitol Hill.

At stake is the continued flow of U.S. economic aid and military support to Pakistan, America’s iffy partner in the fight against terrorism and religious extremism. Congress is not expected to shut off the nearly $3 billion in assistance planned for 2012. Despite deep misgivings, the U.S. does not want to allow Pakistan to become unstable and risk having its nuclear arsenal fall into the hands of Islamic radicals.

Amid tightened security, the teachers marched to the Capitol in hopes of meeting with lawmakers and even staging sit-ins in the building.

The day was a kick-off to a week of action the California Teachers Association has dubbed a “State of Emergency.” It includes demonstrations and teach-ins throughout the state as schools face the prospect of mass layoffs and program cuts.

Karen Feld is suing her brother for $110 million of his fortune because she says his security guards beat and groped her as they forcibly removed her from their Aunt Shirley’s shiva service at the Washington penthouse where they grew up together. She says the assault at her brother’s direction exacerbated a brain injury and injured an arthritic knee, leading to surgery on both.

An attorney for Kenneth Feld, who now owns Feld Entertainment, responded that his sister’s claims are bogus and suggested she had more interest in grabbing their aunt’s jewelry than mourning her death. Kenneth Feld’s attorney Matthew Kirtland said Karen Feld desecrated the shiva by trying to sneak into a back bedroom, then exploding in a rage when her brother’s security guards tried to stop her. Kenneth Feld, who lives in Tampa, Fla., has countersued his sister for trespassing.

Some parts of the Lone Star State have not seen any significant precipitation since August. Bayous, cattle ponds and farm fields are drying up, and residents are living under constant threat of wildfires, which have already burned across thousands of square miles.

Much of Texas is bone dry, with scarcely any moisture to be found in the top layers of soil. Grass is so dry it crunches underfoot in many places. The nation’s leading cattle-producing state just endured its driest seven-month span on record, and some ranchers are culling their herds to avoid paying supplemental feed costs.

The documents come from gay rights pioneer Frank Kameny, who was fired as a government astronomer in 1957 because he was gay. The library is showing Kameny’s 1961 petition to the U.S. Supreme Court, contesting his firing.

Though it was denied, Kameny’s was the first petition to the high court for a violation of civil rights based on sexual orientation. He argued the government’s actions toward gays were an “affront to human dignity.”

The bulk of the $2 billion is to go the congested Washington-New York-Boston corridor, where $795 million in improvements should allow trains to run at 160 mph on a stretch where they are currently limited to 135 mph. Another $404 million will go toward increasing speeds to 110 mph between Chicago and Detroit.

“These are tremendous transportation projects and investments that America cannot do without,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told reporters at a news conference in New York’s Pennsylvania Station, the nation’s busiest train depot. He delivered a twin announcement later in the day in Detroit.

But their efforts have largely faltered, in part because of opposition from fellow Republicans concerned that pushing too hard against unions could jeopardize other aspects of the pro-business agenda they staked out after strong statehouse gains in the 2010 elections.

Of the 14 states where “right-to-work” bills barring mandatory union fees were considered, only New Hampshire has passed the legislation, and it is uncertain whether Republican lawmakers can overcome an expected veto by the Democratic governor.

The move comes eight months after the state American Civil Liberties Union complained of rampant misconduct and lax internal oversight in the Newark Police Department, though federal and city officials said the ACLU’s petition wasn’t the main reason for the probe.

U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said justice officials will also look into allegations of poor treatment of detainees in holding cells and will investigate whether officers have retaliated against those who legally observe, or record, police activity.

Nine lawsuits challenging the law are pending on appeal, but the Virginia cases before the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals are the first to reach the oral argument stage. Thirteen cases have been dismissed with no appeal filed, and nine are pending in district courts, according to federal officials.

In the most prominent of the two Virginia cases, U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson struck down the health care law’s key provision: a requirement that individuals buy health insurance or pay a penalty starting in 2014. Thirty-one lawsuits challenging the law have been filed nationally, and Hudson – a 2002 appointee of President George W. Bush – was the first judge to strike down any of its provisions. Hudson left the rest of the law intact.

The Pentagon is reeling from health care costs that have jumped from $19 billion in 2001 to $53 billion in the latest budget request. Determined to slash expenses, President Barack Obama is seeking a boost in fees that have remained unchanged for 11 years.

The defense bill proposed by House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard “Buck” McKeon, R-Calif., goes along with a small increase in the next budget but limits long-term increases by linking them to cost of living adjustments for retirees.

The institutions, which have served low-income people in the state for more than 100 years, represent a significant development that’s gone largely unnoticed as the nation climbs out of the recession. Many charity hospitals, already struggling with rising costs, are on the brink of failure because of looming budget cuts, increasing numbers of uninsured patients and a slow economic recovery.

“With economic downturns, you can finesse them for 12 months or 24 months,” said Jim Tallon, president of the nonprofit United Hospital Fund of New York, a research and philanthropic organization. “But now everybody’s used up all their tricks. That’s when people throw their hands up in the air and say we’re not going to be able to continue operating.”

Many would-be soldiers like Ryker Packard, 17, of Fassett, Pa., say they weren’t aware the armed services have a policy of not taking more than 10 percent of recruits with a non-traditional high school diploma. Critics, including some in Congress, say the military is behind the times and point to the growth on online teaching and testing at all levels of education, including college degrees.

“It just grinds my gears,” said Packard, who wants to become an Army diesel mechanic after graduating from Pennsylvania’s Agora Cyber Charter School in June.

With schools under increasing pressure to offer healthier food, the staple on children’s cafeteria trays has come under attack over the very ingredient that made it so popular – sugar.

Some school districts have gone as far as prohibiting flavored milk, and Florida considered a statewide ban in schools. Other districts have sought a middle ground by replacing flavored milks containing high-fructose corn syrup with versions containing sugar, which some see as a more natural sweetener.

Tyler Clementi was an 18-year-old violinist with a bright future. He jumped off the George Washington Bridge into the Hudson River after his roommate at Rutgers University allegedly used a webcam to spy on his same-sex liaison.

They never met each other, but together their ordeals put a spotlight on the harm caused by bullying and helped strengthen laws to crack down on what had until then been treated as a rite of adolescence.

Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku also said no reactors other than the three units at the Hamaoka power plant in central Japan would be shuttered over quake and tsunami concerns.

There is “no need to worry” about other reactors, Sengoku said. “Scientifically, that’s our conclusion at the moment.”